Altap Salamander

Getting Started with Encrypt & Decrypt Plugin

With the Encrypt & Decrypt plugin you can easily encrypt your files. Moreover you can
shred (wipe) files and directories and clean (shred) disk free space.

To encrypt means to convert from readable file using password or key file to unreadable file
(encrypted file). Reverse process is decrypting, you need the same password or key file to
get back the original readable file. Encrypted files are useful for storing sensitive data
or for sending sensitive data using insecure channels.

To shred means to irreversibly delete. When you only delete a file, only reference to its data
is deleted and the data itself remains on disk until another file's data overwrites it.
You can use Undelete utility (e.g. the Undelete plugin) to recover deleted file. If you want
to prevent undeleting of file, you need to shred it. Moreover shredding overwrites file data
on disk many times with special patterns to make even advanced recovering of file data very
difficult if not impossible (surely impossible for common undelete utilities).